SENG – SUPPORTING THE EMOTIONAL NEEDS OF THE GIFTED
SENG groups are one of the best ways that a district or school can support parents as they raise their gifted kids. It is a seven-week, guided book discussion with a group of parents who all share their joys and their concerns about raising gifted children. Two trained facilitators guide the conversations and share insight that they have learned from the workshop training.
I am a nationally sanctioned SENG facilitator trainer. I have trained hundreds of facilitators from dozens of districts in Colorado and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Read here what attendees say about Terry and her training sessions.
Here are some answers to the most frequently asked questions regarding the SENG workshop trainings. Remember, it takes a couple of months to prepare and advertise for a workshop. If you have further questions, please contact me: terbradley @ comcast.net
1. COSTS AND EXPENSES The costs you will incur are: my fees, purchasing two books per person (which are listed below), and the cost of compiling a 3-ring binder, filled with approximately 80 pages, for each participant.
An optional cost to your district is to provide lunch for the participants, so that we don’t have to leave the building to eat. Typically, we would take 30-40 minutes to eat a meal that is provided, and possibly continue meeting over our break, compared to needing to allow an hour or longer for everyone to run out and get some fast food. Most districts also provide a continental breakfast.
2. BOOKS These are required for each participant. Please have them available at the training session:
book 1: A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children – Webb, Gore, Amend, DeVries.
ISBN 0-910707-79-0
book 2: Gifted Parent Groups: The SENG Model, Webb, Devries.
ISBN-10: 0-910707-77-4
It is generally less expensive to order these from Amazon. I have found that the publisher, the Great Potential Press, doesn’t discount the books as much as Amazon. Order these as soon as possible to make sure they arrive in time for our session.
3. BINDER The master binder that needs to be copied off will be sent to you as soon as I receive confirmation of our session date. You will need a 1.5 inch binder for each participant on the day of the training, filled in advance with the information I will be sending you.
4. DISTRICT NEEDS Please let me know if the participants in this training session will be working with parents who have children in specific “special needs” categories. Specifically, is there a high number of students identified as Twice Exceptional? Is there a large population of identified students who are Latino or of another culture? This is helpful for me to know so I can individualize the training session to the needs of your particular district.
5. THE DAY OF THE TRAINING The session will go from 8:30am-3:30pm. Please have card stock sheets and markers available so the participants can make name cards that stand up for all of us to see.
It is also helpful to have:
> Name tags/labels for particiants since they will be moving around the room.
> Post-it notes, highlighters, and pens available in the center of their tables.
> Small candies are a nice addition to have out on the tables.
> Coffee, tea, and water in our room throughout the day.
> Consider having lunch brought in for the participants.
I will bring a laptop. You will need to furnish a projector. I’ll also need chart paper and markers (or a board with markers). I’ll need a small table next to the overhead for my notebook of overheads. Also, please have a large table near my overhead where I can lay books/supplies that I will be bringing.
The final 60-90 minutes of the day will be devoted to having the participants split up into groups to do “mock” facilitation sessions with each other. If there are, say, 25 participants, we’ll need space for two or three groups to meet where they won’t be disrupting each other. If the room is large enough, we can just split up into different sections of the room. Sometimes, going into a separate room is less distracting. Please keep this in mind as you’re making final plans for space in the building.
6. THE PARTICIPANTS Please keep in mind that it is best to have at least 25 participants. It helps if they are talented & gifted (TAG) coordinators and educators, school counselors, school psychologists, and possibly one or two very informed and involved parents. One or two parent leaders can specifically be invited to do the training. Administrators are certainly welcome, but they generally don’t have the time to spend facilitating parent groups on top of their other responsibilities. I would encourage administrators to attend the training if they are coming to learn more about SENG, and as a means of supporting their staff who are doing the training.
A mixture of kindergarten through 12th grade representatives would be ideal, as SENG groups are needed for elementary, middle, and high school parents.
Having at least two Spanish speaking people is a real bonus, as they can then facilitate groups to Spanish speaking parents. This provides an even greater service to the community. Consider inviting representatives from Special Ed, as they can learn to work with gifted facilitators to serve the needs of twice exceptional students.
Also, remember that each parent group is co-facilitated by two people. So…each person will eventually need a partner who has been trained as well.
7. FINALLY, you can check here if you need any bio information about me.
Read more about SENG Model Parent Groups on the SENG web site.
Please contact me with any questions or comments so we can be organized and prepared for our session. terbradley @ comcast.net